Redskins Prevail in Crazy-Ass Finish, 22-19
The best thing you can say about Washington's performance is that they managed to play well enough to almost not lose in heart-breaking fashion. That's pretty suspect grammatically, but it more or less defined the play of the Redskins Sunday afternoon.
Once again, the defense looked meh, the offense played bleah, they strung some good plays into scoring drives and missed some golden opportunities on both sides of the ball. By the time Nick Novak missed his 49-yard figgie try near the end of the game, fans were likely hanging their head. And one could not be blamed for reaching for the remote after Dallas QB Tony Romo hit Jason Witten for a 28-yard completion that set kicker Mike Vanderjagt up for a 35-yard attempt to win the game.
But that's when bad decisions, bad play, and, dare we say it, bad karma came back to haunt Dallas.
The contest was one of those games where a handful of frozen moments stood out in stark relief, and on Sunday, all of them seemed to prey on the Cowboys. There was Julius Jones failing to get out of his own end zone for a safety, sapping the momentum gained from a goal-line stand moments before. There was Roy Williams committing pass interference on a wide-receiver option, allowing a huge gain. There was the way the Dallas defender tipped a floater into Chris Cooley's hands for a critical touchdown. And, on a play most Dallas fans are going to remember, especially considering how well Romo played, there was T.O. dropping a beautifully thrown bomb that would have surely gone for a backbreaking touchdown.
And let's not forget some dubious decision making from Bill Parcells. Parcells, still thought by many to be some sort of sage gridiron genius, spent all week offering a whole lot of smart-sounding criticism of Jon Jansen and the rest of the Redskins. But in the second quarter, Parcells, up 6-5, decided that he just had to get fancy, and ordered up a two-point conversion try. Those who study at the Easterbrookings Institution know that this decision came in violation of an immutable law that states that two-point tries should always occur late in games. The attempt was a bust, and, as the two teams battled the rest of the way--the score dovetailing to a tie--you could tell that the Cowboys rued the decision greatly.
So, it all came down to a 35-yard kick, obtained by Witten on yet another one of those plays where Adam Archuleta seemed to feel that "covering" a receiver meant "accompanying" them as they made a big gain. Luckily for Washington, Dallas employs the kicking services of the original Idiot Kicker Mike Vanderjagt, one of the games true punk fools, who has earned himself a lifetime of grief from the football Gods. Jason Witten, talking loud smack about the Redskins imminent defeat, failed to notice that the little black cloud that follows Vanderjagt was shadowing him as well. When the ball was snapped, Witten blocked the wrong man, allowing the desiccated corpse of Troy Vincent to be flung ballward, blocking the attempt.
Lucky for Washington, the ball ended up in the hands of Sean Taylor, who, drawing a facemask penalty, instinctively charged upfield as far as he could go. By the time he was brought down and the penalty was tacked on, Washington was back in Novak's range with one untimed play remaining to win the game. Novak, who was probably playing at that moment just to remain on the team, made the game-winning attempt, and the crowd erupted in joyous yawping.
While the Redskins play left fans wondering if anything was done during the bye week to reverse the teams fortunes, the surprise win kept hope alive for the season, and may have provided Washington with a real psychological boost. Rock Cartwright offered his take to reporters after the game: "You know how they put that defibrillator on somebody's heart and give them a shock and bring them back to life? That may be us after this game." We'll see if he's right next week in Philadelphia.